The Milk Run
by teh best arthur
Summary: It's a simple job, get in, get random artifact, get out. Sure, the guy hiring them isn't showing his face, and he seems to know a little too much about Aztechnology, but what's the worst that could happen? (First attempt at fan fiction, may update more frequently if people express interest in it)
1. Prologue: Getting the Runners

"Have you found my runners?"

"Yes, sir. Four. They fit into your categories: Body Shield, Mage, Weapons Specialist, and Decker."

"Show me the resumes."

"Of course. They also have videos. Shall I play them for you?"

"Please do."

RUNNER PROFILE: MO'. BEGIN PLAYBACK.

The video begins in a dark room, with a troll standing front and center, arms crossed, looking angry. He easily reaches 9 feet, and he may be even taller. This is likely from his large cybernetic legs. His right arm is also cybernetic, much larger than his other, but not enough larger to be cumbersome. He takes in a big breath, then lets it out, keeping that same pissed off look all through out. "My name is MO'." He says, sounding like he wants to shout at the top of his lungs. "I beat shit up."

"Chip on his shoulder, eh?"

"Yes, sir. His father was killed in the Night of Rage."

"How does he feel about Aztechnology?"

"He despises all corporations."

"Good. Hire him."

"Yes, sir."

"Play the next profile."

RUNNER PROFILE: BERN. BEGIN PLAYBACK.

The camera is zoomed in tight on the face of an elf. He looks fairly young and attractive, although his face is dirty, and he has a small bruise under his left eye, and from the confident look on his face, he probably got it by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He is focused on something off camera. The camera slowly pans out to show he is sitting in a garage on a wooden chair, and has just finished reassembling an SMG. He looks up, as if just now noticing the camera, and sets the gun down. "Hoi," He says. "Name's Bern. I ask you, why pick between mage, and guns expert, when you can have both, without sacrificing anything?" He grins wide, showing off his white, almost predatory teeth. "Sounds like a pipedream, but I assure you, I'm the full package, baby." He winks, and the video ends.

"Can he cash the checks his mouth is putting out?"

"Yes, sir. He has accomplished enough runs for his claims to be believable."

"And his opinion on Aztech?"

"He has a blog. Whenever he finishes a run successfully, he brags about it there. He has completed two runs against Aztechnology, and commented to the effect of them being 'Magic abusing scum.'"

"He's hired. Run the next clip."

RUNNER PROFILE: DJ

There's no theatrics about this one. It's just a human girl, standing upright. She's short, and she has a young face. She looks almost 16, but her records state she's 19. The background is a messy room, likely her office. She cocks her head. "Why the hell do you need a video? Look, go through my fixer, drek for brains."

"That's it?"

"She has a designated fixer she receives most of her business through. She is not usually directly contacted like this."

"Hm. What's she do, besides decking?"

"Let me pull up her text resume...'I know hedge support spells, and I deck. I prefer to not get anywhere near a fight, but if you wanna endanger a poor innocent girl like me in an actual firefight, I'm still game. Just don't expect me to like it.'"

"Sassy. How are her records?"

"She has performed a number of runs without much difficulty. I can pull up the specifics for you to read later."

"Please do. And I'm guessing she hates aztech?"

"Indeed."

"She's hired. Who's this last one?"

RUNNER PROFILE: LOGAN

A human man, aged and balding, stands at attention in a dark bunker. Despite his age, he still looks as sharp as he must have when he was in his twenties. He smiles for the camera, and waves with his right arm. Which is covered in chrome. "Hey. Name's Logan. I used to be Lonestar, but they discharged me." His smile breaks out into a wild grin on his face, a real smile. "I interpreted the order 'fire on helpless civilians' as 'fire on asshole lieutenant.' Got fired and lost my arm."

"A former Lonestar?"

"...Is that okay, sir?"

"I'm glad he has experience. Although that story has me dubious...How does he feel about Aztech?"

"He has not expressed direct hate of the corporation, but he seems disenfranchised with corps as a whole."

"Pah, aren't we all. Screw it, hire him."

"Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes. Go on home."

"But sir-"

"You did good, Delilah. Have the rest of the night off."

"Yes, sir."


	2. Chapter 1: The Briefing

She pulls out a handheld mirror and checks how she looks. Even in this day and age of purchasable good looks and electric doo-dads, it pays to have makeup and a mirror. She looks just fine, damned stunning in her own opinion, not that it matters. No one bothers asking a novahot little girl what she thinks.

She looks at the number on the door, confirming it's the one she wants. She opens it, and immediately finds a chair to sit on. "Took you long enough!" Says some elf standing in the corner with a drek-eating grin on his face. She looks around the modest little office. There's three chairs, all occupied. One by her, one by a giant cybered up troll, and one by an old human dude. An elf secretary stands behind a desk. You can tell she's a secretary because she's clutching some papers. "So, now that we're all here, let's get to the issue at hand."

She turns around, and taps the side of her head. The wall slides open like a panel and a monitor slides out. Huh, she must have some mods in her cranium. The monitor lights up, and a silhouette of someone comes on, complete with a modulated voice. "Greetings gentlemen, and, ah...Gentle-lady." DJ rolls her eyes. The elf grins wider. "I've given you all the base idea of the job, but to recap, I need you to bust into an Aztechnology office, and retrieve this." The silhouette motions to his right, and an image of some native-american looking totem appears. "Any questions so far?"

The elf raises his hand. "I've dealt with Johnsons before, lots of 'em, but they had the decency to show up in person. What's the deal?" The silhouette steeples its fingers like some saturday morning cartoon villain. "If you've dealt with many Johnsons, you should know asking personal details is a very common taboo." The silhouette brings its hands into its lap. "In any case, the reason for the secrecy is one I'm not willing to share with my shadowrunners. Is that okay with you?" Before the elf can reply, the troll speaks up, and let's out a "Yes.", a little louder than necessary. When the room remains silent for a few more minutes, the Johnson goes on. "The facility is located downtown, right about..." It motions to its right, and a map pops up with an area circled. "Here. Any more questions?"

The human guy raises his hand. "What kind of resistance should we expect?" The silhouette sweeps its hand down then up, making the map disappear and a surveillance image of some average looking guards appear, with a Knight Errant logo below it. "They're nothing serious, but if they get spooked they're going to call Knight Errant, guaranteed." No, no. This isn't right. DJ needs to speak up. "Why the drek are they going to call Knight Errant? I thought you said this was a low-key operation." Without missing a beat, the silhouette replies "It's Aztechnology. They're very paranoid.", sounding a little agitated. "Yeah, I know Aztech, I've made some runs against them. But the way you talked about this place, you made it sound super insignificant, like they were stashing their janitorial supplies there." For a second, it seems like the elf and the human dude are about to start in complaint, but the troll stand up and stares them down. "We can deal with this." He says, half to his soon-to-be comrades, and half to the Johnson.

"Maybe I can overlook the security...If I like the answer to this question," the elf says, like he's the one in control. "How much are we getting paid? Each." The Johnson doesn't miss a beat. "Twenty thousand." The human guy whistles, the elf's perpetual grin widens even more, and DJ just looks stunned. The troll doesn't react. The human guy says "I haven't been in this business long, but twenty thousand each? That's damn high. Should we expect to get our asses handed to us?" The Johnson laughs. "This should be an easy run, but if it...What do you people call it? 'Goes south'? I want you to be compensated well." DJ looks skeptical. "Every run goes south. It's expected in this business, so why _compensate_ us for it?" The Johnson falls back and places his hand to his chest feigning shock "Oh my! Do you doubt my intentions? Look, I'm tired of you people questioning me. Are you taking the job or not?" DJ thinks, genuinely considering for a second. "Drop 5000 for us all now or I walk."

Silence falls across the room for a few minutes while the Johnson considers. "Fine. Delilah, compensate them." The secretary opens a drawer, and pulls out four credsticks. She fiddles with them before handing one each to everyone. "When can I expect the run to begin?" All the eyes in the room turn to DJ, apparently having made her the designated speaker. She almost blushes from the attention. "Two weeks." The Johnson nods. "Fine. We're done here, Delilah."


	3. Chapter 2: DJ's Apartment

Flash forward a couple of days. DJ's sitting in her apartment, its tiny walls overtaxed by three guests. Turns out the troll likes to eat, because he's rifling through her fridge like there's a bomb at the back that's about to detonate. That can only be diffused by eating all of her food. The human's waiting patiently for the troll to finish his business while the elf fiddles with DJ's trid in the corner. Occasionally she sees little flashes of light and hears bursts of sound, but by the time she looks over, the elf flips the trid off before going back to screwing with it once she looks away again. She almost feels like she's thirteen again, playing with her friends at her mom's house...

She blurts out "So, how about introductions?" Before she fully realizes what she said. The troll comes back holding a massive sandwich full of synthetic vegetables and meat, with several layers of bread that DJ's not one hundred percent certain isn't just cardboard and foam. "How do you eat so much and not put on a pound? You'd go over pretty well in those dieting mags," the elf looks the troll up and down, smiling with his ever-present grin "But you wouldn't exactly make the front cover..." The troll flips him off then takes a bite of the massive sandwich. The old guy sighs. "I guess I'll start, then. My name's Logan. I used to work for Lone Star-" Every pair of eyes in the room dart towards Logan, before he lifts his hands up defensively "If it makes you feel any better, I got discharged for shooting a fellow officer." He chuckles a little and smiles, genuinely seeming amused. DJ, between giggles a little too girlish for her own tastes, says "How'd you get into shadowrunning?" Logan lets his hands rest again and shakes his head. "Hey, we do this run and live, I'll tell you guys all about it."

The elf comes out of the corner and throws himself into the couch, rattling Logan for a second. "I'm Bern. I shoot fireballs and bullets, I'm charismatic as hell, and I've been told I'm a great lover." Bern looks at DJ and raises his brows suggestively. DJ responds by grabbing the nearest object- some little complementary paperweight that came with the last deck she preordered, and hurls it at the smug bastard. He deftly ducks, causing the paperweight to bounce off the wall and roll into the troll's leg. "Feisty. Anyways, I'm a mage who knows how to handle a gun, and I've done tons of runs already. You should read my blog, it's called 'Berning bridg-'" The troll reaches over and smacks Bern in the back of the head, hard enough to get him to shut up, but not hard enough to hurt him. "I'm MO'" The troll says, while Bern rubs the back of his head and mutters about getting all the hate "That's capital M-O. I beat things up with my fists and I don't like talking much." Bern looks up at MO'. "So you're an adept?" The troll shakes his head, in a sort of way that ends the conversation. "Anyways," DJ says. "I'm a decker who knows a few hedge support spells. I prefer to stay out of the thick of things, and I also prefer NOT to get involved with smug elves." She shoots a nasty glare at Bern, who gives a big toothy smile. "Meet lots of smug elves?" DJ mutters "You'd be surprised" while getting up to her feet.

"There's a good reason I brought you all here, besides getting to know each other." She says. "We should talk to each other about what kind of stuff we need and about what kind of research we need to run on this place. I dug up some info already and it turns out this little Aztech building we're gonna raid is some kind of upscale warehouse. They hire lots of wage-slaves to sit around and manage data on transport of the things stored there, and I managed to get my hands on some of that data." DJ pulls out her deck and brings up some pictures. "I know just about where our little idol thing is, but what freaks me out a little is the other stuff they're storing." The pictures depict lots of magic looking things, books, scrolls, voodoo idols, you name it. Bern scans the pictures and raises an eyebrow. "So what, we're raiding an Aztech magic storage place. What's got you so worried?" DJ looks exasperated. "The fact that we're doing that in the first place! What the hell does this guy want with an idol like this?" Bern shrugs. "Maybe he's gonna sell it off or something. Look, for bucks like this, we can't turn a job like this down." Logan interjects with "I'm with DJ on this one. This all smells off to me." Bern turns to look at MO'. "How about you, big guy? Intimidated by some magic?"

MO' shrugs. "As long as I get paid." DJ sighs. "We can chat about how off this is later. I looked up the security to this place, and it turns out that the Johnson wasn't feeding us crap when he said Knight Errant might get involved. They've got a few recorded instances of attempted burglary and Knight Errant got called down every time. Whatever they've got in there's real important to them." Logan whistles. "And you figured this all out since the meeting? Nice going, girl." DJ smiles. You'd think an old guy like that calling her 'girl' would piss her off, but it feels like a compliment more than an insult. "Yeah. I can dig up a lot of data, given a couple of all-nighters. But that's all I've got on the place right now. Anyone wants to know anything else, look it up on your own time." MO' shoves the last of his massive sandwich down his gullet, then speaks up. "I need shock gloves." DJ looks around. "Do you, uh...Want me to get those for you?" MO' shakes his head. "Just tell me where I can get some." DJ is just a little confused at this point, but she guesses she'll probably need to get used to this guy. "I know a guy. Does anyone else need anything as far as weapons go?" Bern nods and says "I'm gonna need to stock up on ammo, and I can probably snag a nice SMG with that five thou you got us." DJ recites the number of a guy she knows who's good with weapons. Bern puts it down on his comm, but MO' just sits there. "Alright, anything else we need to discuss amongst ourselves?" DJ asks. After no reply comes, she then says. "Then get out of my apartment."


End file.
